


stomach, heart

by Nemainofthewater



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Baking, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Family, Gen, Rip Week 2020, RipFic, cakes, the time masters are the worst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24977719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemainofthewater/pseuds/Nemainofthewater
Summary: Rip and Miranda's life and love together are made up of a thousand small rebellions. But sometimes there's cake.
Relationships: Miranda Coburn/Rip Hunter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	stomach, heart

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Rip Hunter Appreciation Week 2020, Day 1- Family and Friends

Fresh food is a treat. At the Academy, food is nutritional paste, soft and bland and full of fats, proteins, fibres, and all the vitamins that a Time Master needs to maintain the timeline. That’s what the posters- all bright colours and fake smiles- lining the canteen walls say. Telling the recruits to eat their nutritional paste and be grateful for it. That there are more important things to worry about.

Upon his recruitment even Rip, whose diet consisted mainly mouldy bread and the occasional filched meat pie from old Bess who never guarded her wares, knew that the food wasn’t the main selling point of the Academy. 

“It builds them up,” the Council reassure each other every evening, dining by candlelight food cooked- not fabricated but cooked- by the recruits on punishment duty. “Their chosen path is a noble one, but not one that will contain luxuries. And they shouldn’t expect any.”

There are understanding nods around the table, the occasional grumble about food even being provided for the recruits, why in my day… And, eventually, once the port has made its nightly appearance, tearful reminiscences about the lengths that each Councilmember had had to go through to get anything resembling food on some of their missions.

If one Rip Hunter, future captain and current recruit, had known of these nightly rituals, the fall of the Time Masters would have taken place much earlier.

Miranda raps on the third door on corridor 34B in the East Quadrant. Her uniform is impeccable; the creases so sharp that not even Time Master Aika, who is in charge of the second-year recruits and is famous for her ridiculously high standards, would find anything to complain about. The only thing that marks her as out of place is the large package that she’s holding in her hands. It’s approximately the size of a hatbox (or at least what the woman now called Miranda remembers being the size of a hatbox in the distant recesses of her mind) and is warm in her hands.

It smells _good._ Then again, anything with the merest hint of flavour tastes good to Academy recruits.

The door opens smoothly. There are no faulty electronics at the Academy.

“Miranda,” Rip says. His uniform- while acceptable- is not nearly as neat as Miranda’s. He is also wearing a frilly pink apron which, despite what one might think, is _not_ against the dress code as it qualifies as protective outerwear under guidance 1223.4 of the Student Handbook. Miranda knows this intimately as she is the one who searched through the rarely read regulations before she gifted Rip the apron in the first place. Had it been against the rules, she still would have given him the apron- after all, one doesn’t _waste_ a good quality gift like that!- but Rip would have been more circumspect when wearing it.

Though considering that Rip is also wearing his gift while clearly involved in an illegal cooking club, perhaps he would _not_ have been circumspect at all.

Miranda can’t deny that the thought of the danger that they’re courting- being thrown from the Academy and, therefore, their Destiny, in disgrace- is one that sends a shiver through her spine. A not entirely unpleasant shiver, at that.

“Rip,” Miranda replies, sweeping past him and depositing her box on the side. Rip’s room is functionally identical to every student room; small and bare and entirely soulless. With one notable exception.

A table squeezed in the corner of the room and positively covered in icing of all shades and consistencies. Miranda doesn’t want to know how many black market favours he owes to have obtained that amount of icing.

“You’ve brought the cake?” Rip asks, closing the door behind him and coming to stand by her.

“Of course I’ve brought the cake,” Miranda says. “What do you take me for?” She sets her box down on the neatly made bed and steps back, amused, as Rip immediately darts forward and inspects the cake within.

As the lid opens the smell of orange blossom wafts out and engulfs the room. There are a dozen cupcakes, slightly lopsided sunk in the middle, but perfectly cooked. The amount of work that Miranda had had to do in order to not just build- and conceal- an electric oven in her room, but also to make sure that the heat distribution was perfectly even… Well. There is a reason that she’s top of the class in mechanical engineering.

Baking? Well, she’s less good at that. She glares at the cupcakes. She never can quite get the proportion of baking powder correct.

“Perfect.”

“What?”

“Perfect,” Rip repeats. “I know what you’re thinking, and they’re perfect.”

He reaches in and lifts a cupcake out. Sitting in his palm, it looks even worse than Miranda had thought.

“Hey,” Rip says, taking her hand and leading her over to his little workstation. “It’s perfect. In any case, no one will be able to tell once we cover it all in icing.”

#  
  


Jonas takes one look at his cake and bursts into laughter.

Miranda sighs. It’s better than the alternative, which is him bursting into tears. She has to admit, the cake does look like some half-deformed monstrosity. The bright green that Jonas had insisted on for the dinosaur’s scales is bleeding into the steel grey of the fondant Waverider. Which resembles less the highly advanced and technological marvel that Gideon describes it as, and more a stocky grey box.

“Yes, yes, it’s not as good as daddy’s,” Miranda says, pushing her hair back off her face and grimacing at just how _sticky_ it is. She never used to be this sticky before Jonas was born.

“Daddy,” Jonas repeats, bouncing up and down in his chair. “Daddy!” He waves his hands excitedly, repeating the same word over and over. “Daddy, daddy, daddy!”

Miranda smiles despite herself. It’s that or cry, and damn it she feels like Jonas. Leaving the Vanishing Point was the right thing to do- she knows it. Knows that she wouldn’t trade Jonas for the world. But sometimes she could scream at the unfairness of it all, that those condescending pricks can sit in their high towers and dictate who and what their hapless recruits believe, love, protect, cherish…

All in the name of the timeline.

And with that her ire leaves her, leaving her deflated and just that bit sad. It’s not the timeline’s fault that Rip isn’t here to celebrate their son’s third birthday. And it isn’t the Time Masters’ fault either.

“Come on Jonas,” she says. “Daddy isn’t here, but we can have a slice of cake anyway-” she reaches forward to cut the cake but at the last moment has to dodge Jonas’ small fist as he waves a bit too enthusiastically in his attempt to help her. She and Jonas escape unscathed, but the cake is not as lucky; the two of the watch mutely as it’s knocked off the table and splatters onto the floor.

“Bollocks,” Miranda says helplessly.

“Is this a bad time then?”

“Rip!”

Miranda spins around, and it is him. With dark circles under his eyes and wearing his habitual brown coat, but smiling at her with that self-satisfied grin.

“What are you doing here?” Miranda demands. “You said that you wouldn’t be back for another five days! You said that Druce had you on a wild goose chase in medieval Poland-”

“I might have, er, exaggerated slightly,” Rip says. He sweeps forward and presses a brief kiss to Miranda’s lips before drawing back slightly and resting his head against hers, places his hands in hers. “I couldn’t miss Jonas’ birthday,” he continues. “Gideon helped.”

Miranda closes her eyes. “I’m glad that you’re here,” she whispers to him, leaning into his warmth.

“I’m sure you are!” Rip says more loudly, giving her hand one more squeeze before pulling away. “After all, it looks like I’m needed to help take part in the cake making! The cake’s the most important bit, isn’t that right Jonas?”

Jonas giggles at them waving his arms contently (and markedly less destructively).

“If you bake the cake, Miranda, I think that Jonas and I can get on the icing. Like old times!”

“Yes,” Miranda says, grabbing the nearest clean(ish) bowl and laughing at Rip’s expression as her husband discovers _just_ how sticky his son’s hands are. “Just like old times.”

**Author's Note:**

> The only angst in this is the angst of thinking what, canonically, happens to them all...
> 
> I am on Tumblr as [Nemainofthewater ](https://nemainofthewater.tumblr.com)


End file.
